UK government plans to halve number of security levels to simplify accreditation

The UK government is planning to half the number of security levels it uses internally from six to three in an attempt to simplify the accreditation process for suppliers looking to provide services to the public sector.

Andy Nelson, government CIO, was speaking at the Cloud Computing World Forum in London today and explained that the public sector was also hoping to have most services accredited in the lower security levels.

The government applies a Business Impact Level (IL) classification to suppliers to indicate the security level of their services. IL0 (protected) is the lowest level of security, while IL6 (top secret) is the highest. IL2 is often the minimum requirement for government services, for example, it is the minimum requirement for providers bidding for network contracts. “Government’s heritage is to be very risk averse. This is because every time we slip up, the reaction from the public forces the government to respond by locking down," said Nelson.